We were excited to see our Hand on Heart managing director profiled on Cumbria Live recently!
The news website (the Cumbria equivalent of Lancs Live) is one of the most widely read news sites in the area, so it’s brilliant to have their support.
Our managing director, Amanda Dixon, spoke to reporter Melissa Major about Hand on Heart’s story and growth over the last twelve years. Amanda’s story is a fascinating one, and it’s a brilliant representation of women in business – something we’re incredibly proud to champion, here at Hand on Heart.
In the interview, Amanda talks about how she quit her job in finance after maternity leave to set up her business. After starting off working from the kitchen table, Hand on Heart has now grown to a fantastic team of eleven, based in our beautiful studio in Hackthorpe, Penrith.
Talking about the company’s origins, Amanda said: “It was literally from a kitchen table business. I was just returning to work after having my second baby and wanted something to represent him. I wanted something to represent my baby and started looking around at personalised jewellery, and there was nothing that fit the bill of what I wanted. So, we set up a lab on the kitchen table and started trying it ourselves and came up with the idea of hand-printed jewellery.”
Amanda also discussed how the shift in demand for certain products has evolved over the years. She said: “As we first started off, the idea I had in my head was that people would want this jewellery exactly as I did, to represent their babies. A couple of years in, we started getting requests for other kinds of jewellery. A really common one is a pawprint instead of a handprint, and that side really grew.
“In the last two years, just before the pandemic, we saw a huge growth in memorial jewellery. It’s the same sort of concept but for a different reason. So we are making it for people who have lost loved ones. We can make pieces from handwriting, fingerprint or ashes.”
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